Negotiating cultures, modes of memory in novels by African women

grantor: University of TorontoThe dissertation examines the transmission of cultural values in a selection of African women's texts, written in English and published between 1966 and 1986. Focusing on a range of works by Kenyan, Nigerian and South African women, the study explores modes of memory and examines the way writers represent, reaffirm and re-position cultural authority during post-colonialism. The dissertation examines autobiographies, histories and fictional narratives, modes by which memories of the past are formally and consciously structured and recorded, but the study also examines the way in which language, customs and traditions convey cultural values and attitudes, often beyond the conscious control of the writer. The welter of African and Western cultural influences of both past and present provokes an on-going interaction through which the writers in this study interrogate the contesting of cultural authorities. Since women's roles are largely dictated by cultural expectations, the dissertation includes examination of the writers' attitudes to those customs relating to marriage, polygeny and child-rearing, and analyzes their solutions regarding these issues. The works of Charity Waciuma, Grace Ogot, Flora Nwapa and Rebeka Njau, discussed in Chapter One, depict the difficult process of renegotiating the authority of cultural memories, an on-going process in any society, but one intensified by the imposition of Western colonial influences. Their works reflect and question, to varying extents, the cultural expectations imposed on women, while simultaneously advocating the benefits of readjusting and/or reaffirming established customs. By contrast, the selected works by Buchi Emecheta, examined in Chapter Two, depict an abrupt confrontation of cultural influences, and reject established or traditional customs as being stultifying to women, hindering self-development. Chapter Three examines the challenge the works of Miriam Tlali and Bessie Head pose to the cultural authority of the apartheid system. While Tlali finds solutions in the public arena, and calls for collective, political action, Head suggests that solutions may be found on the personal level, through relationships, self-analysis and self-acceptance. The study also examines how the works of Miriam Were, Tlali and Head advocate the need for men to change their cultural attitudes towards women.Ph.D